Follow your muse. Make the music you want to hear. And if no one listens, make more music - even if no one else hears it.-Bob Mould
**** The way you get a better world is, you don't put up with a substandard anything. -Joe Strummer
!!!! THIS AIN'T A PROMOTIONAL TOOL !!!!

Saturday, November 1, 2014

The Twilight Sad are still a bitter, bitter bunch. I really like their brand of sensitive teenage girl rock, don't get me wrong ( Oh, of course you know what I mean by that- this is the type of music from Joy Division, to the Cure, to Depeche Mode to My Chemical Romance- it's the kind of music for those, usually teenage girls of a certain persuasion, that has just enough swooning romanticism to satisfy the Pop/Rock directive, but enough sadness, anxiety and angst that only the sensitive types seem to fully appreciate it.) but the new thing that they bring is not the David Bowie/Brian Eno/ New Wave/ Industrial synths, but the kind of bitter, cynical simmering anger that fellow Scotsmen seem to lack.
So, for example, if you were to bring up melodic similarities to the lost, lamented Aereogramme, you wouldn't be wrong. Sure,this is more synth-based, and the beat is far more regular, but the lushness and the orchestral opulence of the melodies remains as testament that this band came from the same soil.
But Aereogramme were pure romantics, whereas this lot have no hopes- from opener "Girl in a Corner"'s repeated "She's not coming back" to closer "Sometimes I Wished I Could Fall Asleep" refrain "There's nothing left for us"- this cold bleakness isn't mourning, with a hope that something will come from the sorrow- this is anger and bitterness in the certainty that suffering has no meaning or reward.
Still those melodies- this would be somewhat pissed off Cold Wave of a Cure/ Scary Monsters-era David Bowie/ early Roxy Music variety, if not for the absolute wealth of melodic measures. They offer salve and balm to the still none-more-bleak lyrics, which despite the band's protestations that they're more hopeful than the last LP ( 2012's "No One Can Ever Know" ) - they're still more bleak than I've heard any Goth or Emo get.
So, it's like strong coffee or dark beers- I don't blame you if you cannot stand the bitterness, but I believe that fruits are worth it.

Monday, October 27, 2014

I'm home today because of the dentist. See, I hate going to the dentist because dentistry is a lost art in this country. I say "lost art" as opposed to "obscure science" because that's part of the problem. Nobody grows up thinking "I wanna be a Dentist when I'm grown up". Instead, they want to go into cosmetic dentistry at best, usually, they're a failed doctor. So, while they supposedly have the technical skill to drill into your dentin, they lack any and all finesse, because if they had any real skill, they'd be in cosmetic dentistry. So, the dentist screwed up, and I had to go in for emergency oral surgery today to retrieve a small piece of metal they left in there, last time that had caused an infection, and abscess. Fun, huh? Still not the worst thing a "Dentist" has screwed up in my mouth.
Anyway, I bring up my tale of woe because it's entirely appropriate for the latest release from Pray for Teeth, a Pittsburgh band that you want to know.
First, let's talk about length- these are 4 songs, and it's LP length. So, yes, sit down, get comfortable, because each song is gonna last awhile.
They might get labelled "post" something or another because of that. I'm going to reject that out of hand- calling them "post metal" or "Post hardcore" implies that the music they make is dependant upon a working knowledge of something before. This has no precedent as far as I know. Yes, the screamed vocals, and minor keys might lead you towards doom, or sludge metal. Yes, the reverb drenched, and heavily delayed guitars might lead you towards goth, or spaghetti westerns, but the dynamics betray both of those directions, and the songwriting owes at least as much to shoegaze bands as it does to crust punk. If you had to put this into a box, I think it'd be a pretty lonely box-
"Cinematic Sludge Crust Shoegaze screamo".
Might I suggest a better approach is to actually listen to the music, and analyze it from there? As mentioned, yes, Screams- slightly more punk styled screaming than metal styled in that it's hoarse, and desperate as opposed to guttural and mannered. I like that. Yes, lots of time-based effects- reverb and delay. However, it's not to obscure, as in the case of shoegazers, nor to be "trippy" a la Sludge and Stoner bands- instead these echos add heft and drama- like Ennio Morricone, and Young Widows- and yes, this would be one of the very few bands that I can see as keeping up with Louisville ( Between Young Widows, Workers, Coliseum and Xerxes, Louisville will destroy your scene, musically). The instruments used are straight up hardcore, though- that sounds like a Les Paul, with a Duncan in the bridge, played through a Sovtek head ( Mig 50H, possibly)- and the reason I say that, is that years ago, I got very nearly the same tone using that very set up- I just didn't know what to do with it besides Crusty hardcore. You've got your signature Peavey pound bass, and a fairly minimal trap set for the drums. I'm not so good that I can hear the brand, but this is more "one of each" than the excesses of a metal drum set- where you can hear four different toms, about 6 splashes, and even the bass drums are tuned slightly different from each other. So, considering how downtuned this is, as well, I'd say more Crust than Straightedge, but hardcore punk rock, for sure. Plus, the guitar player can do those 128th note trills on the downstroke, and move the chord up and down the neck to make a melody- that's a Crust signature- but, like I say- with so much drama from the echos that it becomes a very different beast.
Earlier, I said you want to get to know this band- here's why- they get the kind of push that, say, Young Widows got, or the kind of recognition that Fucked Up got, and they will dominate. These are some very tightly composed songs, especially considering the lengths- of the four, the shortest is in the long end of the six minute mark. That tells me these guys absolutely know what they're doing. Nothing sounds like a jam, nothing is extraneous, or a blind alley- this all clearly flows from one musical idea to the next- so either they're my age, and have been playing together since middle school, or these guys are masters of their chosen form- I'm going with the latter. No mistakes- they know exactly what they want this to be, and are honed in, like a surgeon.
As my friends who play know, I play along when listening to music at home. It gets me into the mood, and gives me a way of interacting. I honestly couldn't find any real niches to stick my little licks into- this stuff is airtight, and built like a tank. Heavy, melancholy, tough, tight, and dramatic. Just great stuff. Really. How's that for a genre to put them in? Great stuff.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

You know how you can tell when I'm angry? I shut up. I'm not a particularly violent guy, but I've been in a few fights. Some serious ones, even, where the law became a concern. Every time, right before a fight, I go silent. No yelling, no more warnings- just silent. It extends out from there. See, I never really mastered conflict resolution, so, when I don't have any more arguments, I stop arguing, and start fighting.
I say this because it means you can tell a lot from what I omit. If I don't mention a band, or an LP, and it would be logical for me to mention it, it's probably because I don't like it. If I purposefully talk around some line of thinking, it's because I don't respect it- and so on.
So, I'm breaking a fundamental "rule" for me, here: The reason why I'm not particularly fond of genres has to do with a strain of Academic Liberal Arts thought- which is to say- I've got very little respect for "post modernism" in Academic thought, and absolutely nothing for the "post structuralists". I think they have no real argument, they're just trying to reframe the debate so it looks like they have a point. I think they're a collection of petty little critics with no real experience, so they take some half understood language theories, and even less understood concepts from psychology, and add it to pseudo- sociology, and then, to shield themselves from any kind of objectivity, call it philosophy. As far as I'm concerned, they were debunked in the mid 1990's with the Sokal affair. Still, in non-academic settings, the over-reliance on jargon and torturous, rube-goldberg-esque can be mistaken for intelligence, and rock critics aren't academics. They shouldn't be, because Rocknroll is popular music. But, it leaves them vulnerable- so because good ol' Bobby Christagau and Greil ( What the hell is that?) Marcus flirted with post-structuralist terms, and theories, because what better way to prop up their deficient taste than with jargon filled bunches of claptrap that nobody in the sciences ( where the real intelligence has been for 100 years) takes even remotely serious. So, now those idiots, along with cohorts found everywhere from the NME to Cineaste and so on have left Pop Culture probably the last area where such mental masturbation is seen as intelligence. Because I actually like pop culture enough to take it as culture, that means I'm plagued with these jackofficers. That includes having to have this monologue.
I blame them for the hairsplitting bullshit of all these microgenres, and I blame them for unlistenable crap like "Kid A" being taken more seriously than QOTSA's "Rated R"- when if you look around, worldwide, thousands more bands were influenced by Josh Homme's crew than Thom Yorke's. I blame them for the neutering of rock, and I think that every time I hear someone talking about "Post metal/Doom" they're using the language of the oppressor. That I've had to resort to similar pains me.
You might be asking why I'm bringing this up, now? Because it's to do with pop culture and it's been on my mind for the past two weeks. I know it's an esoteric-seeming thing to rant about, but if you had my background of having to deal with this bullshit since 1988, you'd see it all over the place, as well. What can I say? This blog is for me, and how I see it. If you think I'm wrong, that's fine, we disagree, but at least you can better predict how I'll react to things.
Just don't get me started on Identity politics- I'm liable to have an aneurysm and cover you in blood and cerebral fluids...

About Me

I'm Matt, sometimes called Max. I'm too old to care what you think, and too young to deserve any authority. I live in a small town in the foothills. I'm strange. Aren't we all? But, for the rest, read the blog.